Predictions for 2018

Introduction

As 2017 draws to a close, I see a lot of predictions articles for the new year. I’ve never done one before, so what the heck. Predictions articles are notorious for being completely wrong, so take this with a grain of salt. The main problem is that things tend to take much longer than people expect so sometimes predictions are correct, but take ten years instead of one. Then again some predictions are just completely wrong. Some predictions keep reappearing and never coming true, like Linux replacing Windows or Microsoft releasing a successful phone. I think most writers find they get a lot of readers on these articles and then no one bothers to check up on them a year later. I’ll assume this is the case and go ahead and make some predictions. Some of these will be more concrete and some will be continuing trends.

Blockchain/Bitcoin

I’m not going to make any predictions on the value of Bitcoin. The more interesting part is the blockchain algorithm behind it. This algorithm allows a method to ensure reliable transfers of money in a distributed manner. The real disruption will come when services like credit or debit cards start to be supplanted via blockchain transactions that don’t require any centralized authority. Several big companies like IBM are investing heavily in the infrastructure to support this. Right now credit and debit cards charge very high fees and many businesses are highly motivated to find an alternate solution. Blockchain offers a ray of hope to remove the transaction charge/tax that exists today on every transaction. I doubt that credit and debit cards will disappear this year, but I do predict that blockchain will start to appear in a number of business to business financial exchanges perhaps something like Walmart and their suppliers. This will be the start of a long decline for the existing credit and debit card companies unless they innovate and reduce their costs. Right now they are going the route of lobbying governments to make blockchain illegal, but like with the music industry protecting CDs they are fighting an ultimately losing battle.

AI

What we are calling Artificial Intelligence will continue to evolve and become more and more useful. We won’t reach true strong AI this year and the singularity is still a ways off, but the advances are coming quickly both on the algorithms side and the hardware to run them on. Will this be the year of the self driving car? Perhaps in small numbers. We are already seeing self driving taxis in Singapore and Phoenix. I think we are primed for this to take off big time. Some of the big cost savings will come from self driving buses, taxis and trucks. However governments still need to figure out how to alleviate the disruption to the work force this will cause. We will see more and more AI solutions rolled out in sales, inventory replenishment and scientific research. Speech, translation and handwriting recognition systems will continue to get better and better. Predictive systems that suggest movies to watch and music to listen to will get better and better. Products like Alexis and Google Home will become more widespread and their perceived intelligence will improve daily.

Privacy and Security

2017 was a very bad year for data breaches, ransomware attacks, government interference and a general trend to imposing restrictions on the Internet. 2018 will be worse. We have national security agencies like the Russians operating with immunity. We have rogue nations like North Korea launching ransomware attacks. We have the removal of Net Neutrality in the USA allowing ISPs and the government to spy on everything you do. Due to the amounts of money involved and a general lack of oversight or prosecution from governments, 2018 will set new records for data breaches, stealing of personal information, botnets and ransomware attacks.

DIY

In the early days of personal computers the Apple II and IBM PC were quite open hardware architectures with slots for expansion boards and all sorts of interface capabilities. Software was also open, interfaces were documented (either by the manufacturer or reverse engineers) and you could run any software you liked. Now hardware is all closed with no interface slots and you are often lucky to get a USB port. With many modern devices you can’t even replace the battery.

With the introduction of the $35 Raspberry Pi, suddenly DIY and home hardware projects have had a resurgence. Since the Raspberry Pi runs Linux, you can run any software you like on it (ie no regulated App store).

The Raspberry Pi won’t have a refresh until 2019, but in the meantime many companies seeing an opportunity are offering similar board with more memory and other enhancements. Int 2018 we’ll see the continuing explosion of Raspberry Pi sales and an explosion of add-ons and DIY projects. All the similar and clone products should also do well and fill some niches that the Pi has ignored.

Low Cost Computers

The Raspberry Pi showed you can make a fully useful computer for $35. Others have noticed and Microsoft has produced and ARM version of Windows. Now we are seeing small complete computers based on ARM processors being released. Right now they are a bit expensive for what you get, but for 2018 I predict we are going to start seeing fully usable computers for around $200. These will be more functional than the existing x86 based Chromebooks and Netbooks and allow you to run a choice of OS’s, including Linux, Android and Windows. I think part of what will make these more successful is that emulation software has gotten much better so you can you x86 programs on these devices now. Expect to see more RAM than a Pi and SSD drives installed. For laptops expect quite long battery life.

AR/VR

Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality have received a lot of attention recently, but I think the headsets are still too clunky and these will remain a small niche device through 2018. Popular perhaps in the odd game, not really mainstream yet.

Cloud Migration

People’s cloud migrations will continue. But due to the complexity of hybrid clouds and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), many are going to reconsider. Companies will rethink managing their own software installations, and just adopt Software as a Service (SaaS). Many companies will move their data centers to the cloud whether Amazon, Google, Microsoft or another. But they will find this quite complex and quite expensive over time. This will cause them to consider migrating from their purchased, installed applications to true SaaS offerings. Then they don’t have to worry about infrastructure at all. Although IaaS will continue to grow in 2018, SaaS will grow faster. Similarly at some point in a few years IaaS will reach a maximum and start to slowly decline. The exception will be specialty infrastures like those with specialized AI processors or GPUs that can perform specific high intensity jobs, but don’t require a continuous subscription.

Summary

Those are my predictions for 2018. Blockchain starting to blossom, security and privacy under greater attack, AI appearing everywhere (and not just marketing material), DIY gaining strength, dramatically lower cost computers, not much in AR/VR and cloud cycling through local data centers to IaaS to SaaS. I guess we can check back next year to see how we did.